


Seek to Mend

by Dira Sudis (dsudis)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-05
Updated: 2009-12-05
Packaged: 2017-10-04 04:35:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dsudis/pseuds/Dira%20Sudis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During "Yellow Fever." <i>Dean had never cowered from him, even when he had forgotten who Castiel was.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Seek to Mend

**Author's Note:**

> This story was first posted January 8, 2009.

It wasn't merely that Castiel was attuned to Dean Winchester, though he was. Dean's prayer was inarticulate but powerful, a cry of sheer desperation backed by an absolute certainty that someone would hear and heed him.

And someone did, of course. Castiel was at his side almost before Dean had cried out; even with his senses slightly dimmed by the shield of his vessel, Castiel could feel Dean's prayer reverberating, see it manifested in Dean's frantic grip on the Bible he clutched to his cheek. He was mortally terrified, and there was no one and nothing in the room with him but Castiel himself, summoned in answer to Dean's own call.

Castiel sat down cautiously beside Dean, on the foot of the bed. Dean's eyes flashed open, and he turned his head a fraction toward Castiel, then looked sharply away, bowing his head again over the book and gasping harshly. "No, _no_."

Castiel frowned. Dean had never cowered from him, even when he had forgotten who Castiel was. He had faced down an angel he believed to be a demon or worse, and wielded every weapon he had; even when they failed he had kept his feet and looked Castiel in the eye. He had only fallen to his knees when Castiel had used his own voice, and that had been a matter of physical force. There was nothing like that here, nothing whatsoever to explain the sudden reversal of Dean's extraordinary courage.

At Castiel's side, Dean froze, trembling, and then jumped to his feet. He didn't turn his back, but neither did he look directly at Castiel as he shouted, "You--you are _not_ real."

He kept his grip on the Bible, though, and he had called upon Heaven for help with an absolute certainty beyond faith. Dean had never doubted the evidence of his own eyes, not even when Castiel came to him in dreams.

Castiel was forced to reconsider his own observations. He got slowly to his feet, moving around toward Dean's left hand, but Dean's eyes stayed fixed toward the foot of the bed. Castiel stood at Dean's side, looking where Dean looked--he was shaking again, holding himself desperately still--but there was nothing there, not on any plane Castiel could perceive, and certainly not in Dean's physical realm.

Castiel found an instinct in his vessel, nearly a reflex, and allowed himself to bend to it. He raised one hand and passed it back and forth before Dean's eyes.

Dean didn't respond. Dean couldn't see Castiel, couldn't see what was there, and did see things that weren't. Castiel looked more closely at Dean, and then it was obvious: not merely the racing heart, the overpowering stink of fear, the raw scratches on his arm, but the clinging of another spirit, battened onto Dean like a ghostly parasite.

It was exactly that, Castiel realized after a moment's study; a lost soul, so taken up in its own fear and despair that it was beyond saving, diminished to a half-existence in this world, without awareness and without hope, barely perceptible as a separate being. It survived now only in the torment it inflicted upon others, a soul so shattered that Castiel could not reach it, either to help or harm.

He could reach Dean, though, if Dean would only extend some tiny thread of faith, or hope, to follow on that mighty prayer. Even as Castiel watched, Dean doubled over, gasping in pain, and then folded to his knees. "You are not real."

Dean didn't believe what he was saying, though; Dean's soul was shuttered tight, already despairing, already tending back toward hell. He believed himself beyond help--believed it with such ferocity that he made it true, though his assailant was only an illusion and the shredded remnant of a human soul, and salvation stood close at hand.

Dean's chin jerked up, as though forced, and his face contorted with a series of emotions Castiel could not name. He had never had to judge the state of a soul from the movements of the body housing it, but Dean was locked tightly, utterly closed to him. He rasped out, "Why me? Why'd I get infected?"

Castiel knelt beside him, watching for a crack in his formidable armor, for any sign that Dean might seize another moment in which to reach for help. One instant of trust was all Castiel would require, and he could bear Dean up through this, give him the strength to cast off the ghost that clung to him.

Dean fell back onto his heels, his eyes going wide, choking on his breath as his heart raced ever harder. He cowered back, clutching one hand to his chest--he'd dropped the Bible, as forgotten now as his first prayer, certainty lost in the face of whatever doom Dean had conjured for himself. He pushed himself across the floor, his eyes fixed and staring at his nightmare-assailant. Castiel stayed where he was--between Dean and the apparition, though he could not stop what he could not see (what _did not exist_, except in Dean's eyes) and he could not fight what actually plagued Dean.

If it came to that--if this errant half-spirit managed to kill Dean Winchester, after everything--Castiel would have to put Dean right, catch his soul before it could go far and force him to yet another resurrection. But there was always the chance that Dean would look to him for help on the brink of death, in that last extremity, and allow himself to be saved by less brutal means. Castiel watched him, waiting for his moment, praying for just a flicker of awareness from Dean, for any sign that Dean trusted him to come in answer to Dean's utmost need.

Dean's eyes stayed fixed on nothingness, instead, and then all at once it stopped. Castiel saw the tattered soul riding him grow more tattered still, falling apart into nothingness. He felt an instant's regret for the loss--far more than a mere death, a soul lost to oblivion, to unbeing. Dean himself was proof that even damnation was not final, but it would take more than an angel to gather up a soul so utterly destroyed.

And then Castiel's attention was drawn back to Dean, whose overwhelming terror was suddenly absent, as if it had never been. But Dean's blindness to Castiel did not lift; his soul remained as tightly-locked as ever, and Castiel realized that though the imminent threat of death was gone, the despair remained. Dean knew he wasn't going to die now, but neither did he believe himself within reach of salvation.

It had been two thousand years since Castiel had spent so much time near humans, and their limitations were still shocking to him--to be so close to another, and still be so utterly cut off, so completely unable to reach him. It was entirely foreign to Castiel's experiences in higher realms, this separateness, and once again his vessel offered him a gesture.

Castiel reached out his hand--Dean was lying on his back, his eyes closed, seeming to savor the moment of escape, though he could not be said to enjoy it--and ran it gently over Dean's hair. Castiel could feel the heat radiating from Dean's body, the stiff-softness of his styled hair, and still he couldnt touch _Dean_.

"No wonder you're all insane," Castiel murmured. Dean gave no sign of hearing, but Castiel thought his vessel was amused, somewhere inside; he was offered memory-associations, human ideas of what it must be like to touch minds; _no wonder _you _are_.

Dean shook off Castiel's touch, still without seeming to notice it, and pushed himself up on his elbow to look down at his arm, now unmarked. There was no more Castiel could do for him--not now, at least, not until Dean was ready to see him, ready to accept help.

Castiel shook his head, got to his feet, and stepped back, leaving Dean Winchester to his own devices. Castiel had plenty of other work to do, and little enough time in which to do it.


End file.
